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GFX 5900 Caught Cheating

"We have now established that nVidia's Detonator FX drivers contain certain detection mechanisms that cause an artificially high score when using 3DMark03. We have just published a patch 330 for 3DMark03 that defeats the detection mechanisms in the drivers and provides correct results." this is how Futuremark introduce their latest patch for their popular 3DMark03 software.

Saratoga, Calif.-based Futuremark issued a statement claiming that nVidia tweaked software needed to run its new GeForce FX 5900 chip, in order to distort performance in Futuremark's 3DMark 03 testing application. Futuremark is one of the leaders in software and services for performing PC benchmark tests.

According to Futuremark when the patch was applied a drop of as much as 24.1 per cent was observed in certain nVidia products, while competition products performance-drop stayed within the margin of error of 3 per cent.

An nVidia spokesperson said Since nVidia is not part of the Futuremark beta program (a program which costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in), we do not get a chance to work with Futuremark on writing the shaders like we would with a real applications developer. We don't know what they did, but it looks like they have intentionally tried to create a scenario that makes our products look bad.

ATI meanwhile are not too keen to capitalize on another, possible, embarassment for their rivals. ATI's Dave Baumann, partly in response to nVidia's statement said:Despite still being a full Futuremark Beta member, ATI did not make it out of the report entirely unscathed either. There is a performance difference of about 8 per cent in Game Test 4, that accounts for about a 2 per cent difference in the final 3DMark03 score, between the new and old versions, indicating that although not visually different something was occurring on this particular test.

In order to add further validity to the importance of benchmarking tests ATI's Christ Evenden stated:The 1.9 per cent performance gain comes from optimization of the two DX9 shaders (water and sky) in Game Test 4 . We render the scene exactly as intended by Futuremark, in full-precision floating point. Our shaders are mathematically and functionally identical to Futuremark's and there are no visual artifacts; we simply shuffle instructions to take advantage of our architecture. These are exactly the sort of optimizations that work in games to improve frame rates without reducing image quality and as such, are a realistic approach to a benchmark intended to measure in-game performance. However, we recognize that these can be used by some people to call into question the legitimacy of benchmark results, and so we are removing them from our driver as soon as is physically possible. We expect them to be gone by the next release of CATALYST.

What does all this mean however? Most knowledgeable gamers do not buy a card based, solely, on the score achieved in a benchmarking test. It is reliability, performance and value for money which usually determine which card is bought. Benchmark tests are mainly utilized in order to claim the performance crown, giving the bearer increased prestige and an advantage created by the publicity. All that cheating on tests will achieve is to render such tests useless and to create consumers who do not trust the manufacturers. Unfortunately, this time, the reputation of the biggest graphics chip manufacturers has been questioned and there is little chance that they will make it out of it without some doubt remaining in the publics mind. Doubt which can only be cleared by the release of solid, reliable and high quality products.

Comments

....continued for the idiots that won't believe evidence and screen shots.....See what those assholes say. Then ask Nivida why they would not render images off screen and f**k up the camera path in the time demo, creating image problems? f**king knowing very well that takes the stress off the card to improve scores but alters quality. Screen shots don't lie. It's all there. And them bullying others to say otherwise just makes them look like real f**king assholes now. When ATI did this with the quake test, they were motherf**kers too. Nvidia is just pompus and arrogant not to come clean.

As you can see, our cards kick ass. Place your order now and get a free sticker, labeled "the way its ment to be played, the CHEATING WAY". LOL. But seriously, how did u bastards....i mean customers figure out we used GF2 VPUs in those GF4mx's? Well NO REFUNDS!! you suckers.notice: the above was intended with good humor, *snicker*.

Nvida... ..shame, those test scores; and the surprise that the new card hates simple windows-pipes screen savers... I cant help but laugh. ATI should advertise in the games instead of Nvida (SimCity4, UT2k3..)

Cheating were found in both ATI & Nvidia, but these ATI fanboys make a big deal with it. ATI did cheat with their card & none of these ATI Fanboy ever admit it. Fact is DRDEATH & majority of fanboys are bias toward one card. Well screw most of you for misleading the facts. This proves that DRDEATH is trash talking Nvidia & should be BANNED!

hehe ringmaster aint that like ass master or sumfin. :P . hehe, well i did prefer nvidia, but since its now know that they cheat. hmm i like ATi now. lol, how do you know that nVIDIA didn't cheat on there other cards. Makes ya think aye :P L8R dudes.

Dude, you're not listening are you? ATi didn't change image quality. They also didn't totally replace the shader engines nor did they use different precision floating point operations.ATi ALWAYS (even in their "cheat")uses 24bit floating point operations which is the DirectX 9 standard. nVidia doesn't.ATi admitted it rearanged the instructions to be better processed by the card. You morons don't understand that it's not the same as not processing selected parts of the test.They admitted to the "optimizations" so people wouldn't think they were trying to be dishonest. nVidia won't even do that.By definition, ATi's driver changes were optimizations and nVidia's were outright cheats. Ask PROFESSIONALS.Not to mention 16bFP vs 24bFP. ATi did it right. Give it up. The only Fan Boys here are the nVidia fanboys. The rest of us are stating facts.

ok, after i tried uninstalling dx, i f*cked myself, then reformatted to install win2k3 server, after a while that bugged out on me, and now i finally have xp pro installed. ok, now DrDEATH, which version of directx and DET drivers should i use for the 64ddr GTS??

Plus, when ATi's optimization was disabled by the new patch it drops 2% in overall performance where nVidia drops 24%. That's proof enough right there.And you dinks that think FutureMark optimizes the test for ATi's cards at all should read their statement with nVidia that says "3DMark03 is designed as an un-optimized DirectX test and it provides performance comparisons accordingly. It does not contain manufacturer specific optimized code paths." and "all modifications that change the workload in 3DMark03 are forbidden" That still says nVidia's actions were forbidden. Maybe ATi's too, but it doesn't kill the performance of ATi's cards like it does nVidia's.

Still wouldnt call it cheating. If you dont need it dont use it. Its a shame Nvidia couldnt bring out drivers that missed bits out for all the good games eh.Anyways, I have a asus a7n8x deluxe motherboard, you reckon it would be best to get the asus 9950 'geforcefx 5900 ultra' when it comes out? Maxs compatibility.

Ya, ok anonymous. I should be banned for telling the truth and proving it with facts and direct quotes from expert sources and photos. Then again all of us on this forum, DeQuosaek, Lex, Pramma, gMan, Dumb Nvidia fanboys,that have been stating the truth that Nvidia cheated should also be banned. Something Nvidia has been doing to various websites that have published the truth about the fx line. Just ask the editors at TheInquirer.net...TechReport.com....Beyond3d.com...Extremtech.com. And Experts such as John Carmack and Tim Sweeney have no clue in their assement of cheating vs. optimization. Are you for real?"Well screw most of you for misleading the facts."Please tell us how we are misleading facts. Please tell us. Don't just say it Mr.Anonymous. Prove it. This i have to see.Tell us that custom clipping planes is ok. Was that misleading facts? Tell us that rendering a dx9 test not in the required spec because the card in question cannot run it in the same precision as fast as the competition is ok. Is that misleading facts? Tell us that altering camera paths to reduce the work load off the gpu to increase speed and ultimately improving bench scores is ok. Is that misleading the facts? Tell us when Nvidia finished with these "optimizations" why the image quality was not the same and was proven with various screen shots. Is that misleading the facts? Please tell us when Nvidia altered the camera path why so many artifacts were present effecting image quality. Something that never happened with ATI cards during the same test. Is that misleading the facts? Please tell us how we are misleading facts that have been stated for over 3 weeks now by professional 3d experts. Answer this. Can you answer this??? You won't i assume. You will just go on saying...."You should be banned. Misleading the facts."And you won't use facts to try and disprove us either.

First let me say Nvidia are a bunch of asses.I used to buy them and the first card i bought was the 9700 pro and i love it.No Nvidia can compare even if its faster the ATI looks alot better period.Also remember what Nvidia did with their drivers for the tv out and meeting macrovision standards?You either were stuck not using it or were not able to update yopu drivers which is total BS.Nvidia was caught cheating hands down and it shows what asses they are.You have finally seen the beast behind the smoke.Long live ATI and Nvidia i wish you only the worst!!

Tell me something do you ever cheat in your life? Everybody cheats. You DRDEATH & most of the ATI fanboys are making a big deal. WHO CARE IF THEY CHEAT! Most of dumbasses making fun of Nvidia. Admit it DRDEATH, you HATE Nvidia. You never give it a chance like majority of you blinded ATI FANBOYS. Go back to your overpriced & driver issued ATI card you dumbass FANBOY.

just wondering.. this method of rendering (or not rendering rather ;) )does the 5900 do that only in 3DMark or is it exactly how it would render a game under the same circumstances? if not then i dont see how it can really be classified as a cheat... if it only shows this intellegence in 3DMark and is not reflecting how it would render elsewhere in reality. then i think it is a cheat... forgetting all the proffessional reviews and shader talk and whatnotthats my opinion anywaydoes anyone know how if it uses this method in games etc?

i put my trust in to nvidias gfx chips, and this is how they repay me, ..with cheating, i am switching to the more better and reliable ATI, they got a good head on there shoulders, and they dont need to cheat to show what is obviously better.

sarevok - i agree totally. detecting a program and changing because of it should rightly be called a cheat. ati admitted they did that yet drdeath and company still keep saying "optimization because carmack said so". bullshit, carmack would be right if it was a general optimization which did not detect the program but in ati's case it does, yence a cheat.the bug showing up in 3dmark 2001 suggests the possability that nvidia are telling the truth and that it is a bug. why ? since it is not happening in just 1 program. wont admit that though will you ?dr death - nvidia does sometimes talk to some of those sights(such as inquirer" you listed so that shows how accurate your "facts" are.

DeQuosaek - ok you gave a reasonable reason for extremetech to have the devlopers version, still a bit funny. how about explaining the rest of what i asked then ????? and try reading a bit better, nvidia never said they could not afford to be a bpart of the beta program they said they didnt agree with how it was being done.dr death not rendering objects that are off-screen or hidden from camera by other objects is called smart culling and rendering and has been around for years. are you just larning of it now ? hmm maybe you need to read a bit more.

To all those who have Radeons. Is it nice watching peopl play games you cant cause you have to screw with your drivers for hours to play the game :) I have both and 5800FX and 9800 Radeon and personally there isnt much in them except that Nvidia have a proven track record with Drivers and Ati doesnt. We all remeber 3DFX and the Voodoo's, companies will rise and fall but as long as They dont rip me off along the way I dont care what card I use as long as it does the job. And as said below without competition the person that loses is you.

oh and its not just hordocp that is bringing in to question the reliabilty of 3dmark 2003. heres just 1 example for you, hothardware in their 5200 review questions its use aswell [url removed] for the changed image quality, it is a veeeeery small difference. cant admit that may have something to do with the changes that futuremark though can you guys. oh no futuremark are perfect and nothing they do could have any effect could it. riiiiight.

the 3dfx drivers were awesome. the voodoo5s are still sought after, unfortunetely unsupported.since dr.death has been around yet, can anyone else give me a recommendation as to which dx version and DET series are best to use with a 64ddr gts and xp pro?

QUOTE:> "nvidia never said they could not afford to be a bpart of the beta program they said they didnt agree with how it was being done."Maybe because their card couldn't cut it. FM wasn't using optimizations for ANY card, so they cried because their card can't cut it. Look at the scores Trident cards get. You don't hear them crying and they are part of the beta program.

ok ... now look at this way ... some has said this before but Im just going on with it. Next year Nivida will reign again and ATI the year after that so yes ATI is the best atm ... so could we please just let all the young ones dance around in there" f**k ati and Nivida is the bomb bla bla bla" bullshit since they know the truth ( and if they don't they are acutly real monkeys that can't tell the diffrence between there head and d**k ) so could we all just ignore them ... they might go away like the unwanted attentrion seekers they are

QUOTE:> "sarevok - i agree totally. detecting a program and changing because of it should rightly be called a cheat. ati admitted they did that yet drdeath and company still keep saying "optimization because carmack said so". "You've got it 100% backwards, nVidia's cheating driver detected the FM benchmark loading screen and used completely different shader engines then those built into the benchmark.ATi shuffed the instructions and ran them in a different order. They still ran the same engine and instructions. Unlike nVidia.And you put DRDEATH down saying he doesn't know what he's talking about. Well, at least he's not making it up as he goes, like you are.your quote> -"detecting a program and changing because of it should rightly be called a cheat."That's EXACTLY what NVIDIA did, so it looks like you totally agree with us. :)

"as for the changed image quality, it is a veeeeery small difference."THATS NOT OPTIMIZATION. You JUST said it. Smart culling is totally vaild. 100% As long as the visual quailty is the same when the outcome is finished. It was not for Nvidia. You just said it Anonymous. It's funny how you and others iare not mentioning the artifacts Nvidia got when they changed the camera path for greater speed and performance????? Why not mention that? If they changed the camera path and no artifacts were present, then that would be considered a optimization. IQ was not lost. Anonyomous, you keep posting that issue of a bug. There is no bug. Nividia said that soon as this story broke like 6 weeks ago. And no mention again of them "correcting" this so-called bug. Not a word."carmack would be right if it was a general optimization which did not detect the program but in ati's case it does, yence a cheat."So Carmack does not know what he is talking about. lol. Or Tim Sweeney? Oh man are you deluded.ATI when they did their optimizations, IQ was not lost at all. Atrifacts were not present. All scences were renderd. And most important which effects visual IQ amoung other things. They ran the test in the required dx9 precsion. (WHICH 3DMARKS STIPULATES CLEARLY. TO DO OTHERWISE IS CHEATING THE TEST) FP24. Not FP12 or FP16 like Nvidia did. They ran it at that precision because if they ran it at 32 because Nvidia does not run it at 24, it would be alot slower then ATI cards."oh and its not just hordocp that is bringing in to question the reliabilty of 3dmark 2003."Wether it's reliable or not, is not the issue. The issue is cheating in the test. ATI cheated in QUAKE3 some time ago changing IQ, and the whole internet community screamed. Nvidia has ran this test and IQ has changed also and artifacts were present and you call that optimization when experts all over say otherwise now that all the truth is out? What's the difference between the two?

Ok, why don't I answer the rest:QUOTE:> "or how about explaing why FM did the nvidia cheating big and bold but hid the ati part in the pdf ?"That's easy. Because according to your definition nVidia's drivers did what's called a cheat. ATi's did not. And those who care about this issue would download the *huge* .PDF and read it. (it's not that difficult to do)QUOTE:> "and nvidia said it may be a smart clipping problem waaaay back when it first came out. the bug showing up in 3dmark 2001 is also a sure sign there is a bug in the drivers that could be related to that. dont want to remember any of that though do you."I didn't read about the 2001 bug. It must just be mentioned on the nVidia site. And detecting a benchmark and using special shaders is not a bug, it's an intentional pre-programmed CHEAT. By definition it could not possibly be classified as a bug. Someone had to write the routine to check for the benchmark load screen, and the new shader engine, etc.Maybe you should read that -oh so hard to download and read- PDF file.

get it straight, ati has access to 3dmark development while nvidia doesnt. so how did nvidia know what to do exactly and why couldnt it have been a bug ? ati increased actually more than 8% in test 4 even though overall increase was 1.9%. extremetech gets the developer version of 3dmark 2003 which costs the developers hundreds of thousands of dollars and no one else finds that suspicious ???????of course there couldnt maybe be a problem with 3dmark could there, no of course not. that would make it a useless piece of rubbish that doesnt reflect real game performance...hang on it doesnt reflect real game performance (compare it to the games tested by all the other sites). says how much the scores it gives should be trusted...not at all.still no doubt there will be a long line of "no ati doesnt cheat" and "ati is better" blah blah blah

DeQuosaek you are becoming more like DRDEATH. Spamming in this forum. Who gives a f*ck if Nvidia cheats. Its not like you never cheat in your whole life. What are you trying to accomplished here? Stating Nvidia cheats & they sucks and people should buy ATI? F*ck your ATI for screwing up my PC. ATI cadalyst driver never works & they never will. ATI sucks all together.

dr.death you are right in that the 5900 doesnt (in general) beat the crap out of the 9800. it does however beat it the majority of the time. now when the 9800 came out and was beating the 5800 the majority of the time, people were spouting "ati is the fastest, ati kicks nvidias butt". hmm turn it around though and the same people are saying "its only by a little" and "wait til the next ati card" and "it doesnt win every test". talk about double bloody standards.

How many people experience blue screen of death after installing ATI cadalyst driver? I did. Thanks to these moron who convince me to get ATI card. Now it totally F*cked up my PC. Well so much for expert advice.

And i run a MSI4200TI in my 2nd PC. Great overclocking card. No issues with the card at all. Nvidia makes excellant cards. Anyone says otherwise is foolish. It's how they handled this whole FX chipset mess that i have a problem with. And now this cheating fiasco.They have lied about alot of things since they released the FX chipset.And Nvidia does not talk to TheInquirer anymore. Nor TechReport.comAnd THEINQUIRER is one of the foremost harware/computer news sites around. They usally get news first before most sources."cant admit that may have something to do with the changes that futuremark though can you guys."That was a patch to nulify optimizations and cheating in the program. It does not effect IQ. Trust me, if the patch did effect IQ, Nvidia, Hardocp, and the rest would have screamed it did.Now if the patch did effect sherlock, then it would have done the same for ATI cards as well as they BOTH ran the patch. But it did not.And ANYWAYS these problems were found BEFORE they released the patch. When extremetech ran tests they found these glitches and IQ anomilies with the 5900.Now if you run the tests how they are supposed to be run: Run it at the proper floating point precison for a DX9 application(which test 4 is) Render ALL scences. Do not use custom clipping planes that is NOT even considered a optimization in games! Because CUSTOM clipping planes will always effect visual quality. Do not change camera paths in a time demo.(major cheating. It's a timed demo!) Then it shows that 5800, 5900 are slower in shader tests. End result. And that's what the patch has done. And FM still sticks by their statement that the patch is viable and will be used to obstruct optimizations and cheating. Read their recent remarks.

Then you're a f**king loser Anonymous. I am running a 9500pro and no issue with it. You might want to do a clean driver install you f**king moron before you install new drivers. Idiot. And it could be your pc you dumbass. What kind of shit box motherboard are you running? And Anonymous you need to learn to spell. Cadalyst? lol. And you are the same Anonymous asshole that is talking shit. This f**king forum is about Nvidia cheating. DeQ and drdeath are just posting f**king facts to show it. Facts from all over that prove it. If you are soooo f**king dim-witted not to see that they did and strong armed threatened people to get them to say otherwise, then you're as f**ked as the Nvidiot fanboy that you are.If ATI cards ran shit. Then i would say f**k them too. If they lied like a whore like Nvidia has been doing lately, i would say f**k em too. I ATI cheated the same way Nvidia has done in this test which throws a doubt on the doom3 tests and some others. I would say f**k em also again. I am spending my money on these cards and don't want the f**king bullshit from them. I have no f**king favorites. At this point i chose ATI. If they f**k up. It will be Nvidia if they get their lying asses shit together. ANONYMOUS. YOUR A f**kING IDIOT.

From that articale, it made me seem to think it was a Futuremark problem, more than anything else. I know Nvidia did alot of enhancements, but did people car to read the article, or just the title? Nvidia did nothing, except throw away images that where off screen, and where just a waste. Plain and Simple.But thats not my point either, Futuremark see that as cheating, since its there test. BUt ATi scored 8% higher, and they wrote their code *exactly* how Futuremark wanted it. THey said this, even ATi had problems with there drivers. Every company had a performance decrease with this patch. Nvidia where far ahead, but it seems to me, that if every company had optimised drivers, that Futuremark are too blame. Maybe they should allow companies to work of there program without spending money. Else, there working harder making patches for "Optimisations" by companies who could not really avoid it.I know it looks bad for Nvidia, but when there still beating ATi in other tests *MOST* of the time, it seems obvious this test needs some work. ANd Futuremark need to chill, and allow companies some freedom with benchmarking.....

QUOTE:> "DeQuosaek you are becoming more like DRDEATH. Spamming in this forum. Who gives a f*ck if Nvidia cheats. Its not like you never cheat in your whole life. What are you trying to accomplished here? Stating Nvidia cheats & they sucks and people should buy ATI? F*ck your ATI for screwing up my PC. ATI cadalyst driver never works & they never will. ATI sucks all together."Nope, not spamming, just answering all your questions accurately. Obviously you've run out of responses and now you're showing your true fanboy colors.And sure I may have cheated when I was playing WOLFENSTEIN 3D the second time through. I used god mode so I could play through again but faster and take a trip down memory lane. Normally I don't cheat. It completely takes the fun out of most games and in multiplayer games it detroys them completely.So who gives a f**k if nVidia (or anyone else) cheats? I do. And so so a lot of other people. And more importantly so do a lot of vendors who resell nVidia products.

btw, i dont know if my point was clear or not. But to be sure, i will outright say it.Futuremark or jsut too uptight. Nvidias "cheats" did nothing to the Visual Quality or experience. Had those some "cheats" been done in a game, the game would not be affected in any way, except it would run better, since thigns offscreen werent being rendered. Why does Futuremark want them rendered anyway? ITs probably because they dont want to admit to any flaws in their benchmark. THe benchmark shouldnt be trying to render pointless scenes.